


You Taught Me How To Live

by roxywrites



Series: YTMHTL [1]
Category: Green Day
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, EXTREME slow burn i guess because i never fucking update, Early Days, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Character-centric, POV First Person, Poor Life Choices, Punk, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-06 01:45:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11590428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxywrites/pseuds/roxywrites
Summary: Jenn is what you would consider a typical suburban girl - she’s a straight-A student, her boyfriend’s a football player, and her clique is ruling the school. But when her childhood friend Billie re-enters the picture and turns her world upside down, nothing seems certain anymore. The life she’s known crumbles around her as she’s thrust into a world of drugs, punk and poor life choices.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> English is my second language so there might be some mistakes here and there, like punctuation and weird phrasings.

_“I don't feel strange, it's more like haunted_  
_Another moment trapped in time_  
_I can't quite put my finger on it  
But it's like a child that was left behind”_

Green Day - The Forgotten

 

**04/18/2013**

Muffled music from outside of the room reached his ears but he tried to ignore it and completely focused on tuning his guitar instead. All instruments had of course already been tuned long ago but it couldn’t hurt to give it a slight  retouch to make absolutely sure that it sounde just the way he wanted. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his sound technician, but he was a goddamn perfectionist and only happy when not one single wrong tune sounded from the strings. He couldn’t help it. Besides, he needed something in his hands as a distraction, to not hit the ceiling out of excitement like Tr.

Mike plucked a few grapes from the buffet and popped them into his mouth. He wanted to eat more, he  _should_ eat more, to charge his batteries for the concert but he couldn’t bring himself to overwhelm his stomach with hefty food. It was doing cartwheels already anyway and he really wanted to avoid throwing up.

“Billie, you should eat something. You need it more than all of us combined,” he tried to persuade his best friend.

“Yeah… in a moment,” said friend muttered absent-mindedly while continuing to fumble around with his guitar.

Mike sighed. It was always the same old song with him.

“You _know_ that your guitar has been tuned enough hours ago.” He smiled and sipped on his third coffee of the evening.

Tré who was wearing a mini donut on every finger was chewing loudly and happily.

“Man, Tré, how do you manage gorging all of this? That can't be normal.” Billie grinned while shaking his head. “Do you know no limits?”

Tré shrugged and held his middle finger toward him which was surrounded by one of his mini donuts. “Jealous ‘cause I have so many donuts all to myself and you don’t? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one.”

“Nah, thanks. I don’t even want to know where that finger has been before,” he said and looked back down at his guitar to continue his strumming.

“In Mike’s asshole but you should be used to that taste by now,” he said without pulling a face.

“Jesus, Tré …” Mike laughed and wiped away the coffee from his chin.

“Yes, my love?” He blinked and was promptly hit in the face with a wet paper towel.

“Oh no! Now I have to freshen up my _guyliner_ ,” he pouted. “Thanks a lot Mike.”

“Just admit that you were just waiting for the opportunity to do a line of coke in the bathroom. And now piss off, you drama queen,” Mike countered as he watched Tré jump into the makeshift bathroom.

“You know, maybe we should seize the opportunity and lock him up in there until we gotta go out,” Billie thought out loud after the door fell shut behind the drummer.

Mike gave an affirming nod. “Yeah we should. Unfortunately you can’t lock the door from the outside though...”

“Fuck, you're right...”

“And now go and get something into your stomach before the Cookie Monster leaves the bathroom and gorges the entire buffet.”

“I HEARD THAT,” he screamed from the bathroom.

“You were supposed to!” Mike shouted back.

The black-haired man rose with a heavy sigh, gently put his guitar on the floor and joined Mike at the buffet who was holding out a chocolate croissant to him. He accepted it with a thanks and leaned against the table. Mike was staring straight ahead and was suddenly very quiet.

“You know which day it is, right?” he asked softly.

Billie nodded and nibbled at his croissant unenthusiastically.  “Of course.”

He wasn’t really hungry but Mike was right. He needed the energy for the show and he could only get it if he ate something.

“It was 21 fucking years ago,” the bassist muttered and took a sip from his coffee, “and it still feels like it was only yesterday.”

“… and 19,” Billie added with a sigh and received a sad look from his best friend.

 

Drunk Bunny staggered from one end of the stage to the other and did his best to motivate the fans with undefinable gestures. “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones thudded from the speakers and the majority of the concert goers sang along loudly to Joey Ramone’s unmistakable voice and moved their arms from one side to the other on Drunk Bunny’s command. A few teenagers in the first row were searching the stage and tried to catch a glance of one of the band members but to no avail. They were all well hidden behind the stage, nervously watching the scene unfolding before their eyes. Yes, they were all just as nervous as the fans, if not more.

Billie was squatting on the floor and bobbed up and down while taking eager drags from his calm-down-cigarette. He couldn’t wait to get out there and give his fans a show they wouldn’t forget. Their openers had made themselves comfortable in the backstage area and celebrated a successful show. But he didn’t envy them. No, once he was in the spotlight, where he belonged, it was hard to tear him away from it. If it were up to him, the shows would be much longer than just two and a half hours but at some point everyone would be exhausted; the band members, the fans and even his voice would eventually give up on him.

Mike, a fierce non-smoker ever since his son Brixton was born five years ago, had to find a different way to deal with his nervousness: his fingernails were being chewed down at this moment. You would think it was a healthier alternative to reducing his lung to a pile of ash, but it certainly wasn’t prettier.

You could hardly notice the third member of the trio for a change: the otherwise so hyperactive drummer was sitting on a transport box silently, and followed Drunk Bunny's movements only with his eyes, who was now crawling on the floor on all fours. Deep in thought he let his drumsticks rotate between his fingers, which he would eventually throw over his shoulder after maybe the third song.

The bunny gave the fans a last wave and then staggered backstage. For a few seconds silence dominated the hall until the song that announced the band’s entrance finally rang out. The title melody of the western movie “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” sounded in the hall and was only interrupted by a few shouts. You could touch the tension in the hall: Everyone was staring at the three microphones and the drums as if they were under a spell, knowing who would appear on stage at any moment.

Billie suddenly shot up and flicked his burnt cigarette into a nearby ashtray. He nodded to his bandmates and walked to his guitar locker to hang the first guitar of the evening around his shoulders.

“Let’s go.”

 

His feet were already hurting from the less than practical shoes he wore but he didn’t care; the adrenaline that was rushing through his body made it difficult to feel anything but euphoria and happiness. You couldn’t compare standing on the stage to anything - he rarely felt so alive. They’ve been playing for two and a half hours without break but there was no sign of fatigue or exhaustion to be found on him yet. Mike had put his bass back into his locker and sat on a sound box on stage. His musical skills weren't needed for the next song but he didn’t want to part from the stage yet. It was a very special moment for all of them and he wanted to enjoy it as long as he possibly could. It was also a way to show respect by not just disappearing off stage but to stay until the last song was finished.

The lights of the arena were being dimmed down and lost some of their heat. The cool night air that finally engulfed Billie was a welcome change and like balm on his sweaty face. The straightened black hair on his head was curling up from the sweat. He shut his eyes appreciatively and took a deep breath before he went back to his guitar locker and put away the electric guitar. Back at the microphone, now guitar-less, he turned around to Jason Freese and gave him a short nod. The last song wouldn’t be "Brutal Love"  as usual but "The Forgotten".

They had never played this song in front of an audience before and for good reason. He wanted to save it for this day, for this place. The first sounds of the song filled the arena and the spotlights focused solely on Jason and him. He had to smile involuntarily when suddenly thousands of lighters and phone displays lit up in one fell swoop and moved along to the music. It was a breathtaking sight.

 _“Where in the world's the forgotten?_  
_They're lost inside your memory_  
_You're dragging on, your heart's been broken_  
_As we all go down in history.”_

He had to admit that he was surprised by just how many fans immediately started singing with him. Maybe he had underestimated the song’s popularity. After all it was the last song on that last album and maybe it was just … well, _forgotten_ by most but in his opinion it was the perfect ending of the trilogy. Especially considering how much this song meant to him. Not just to _him_ , he knew that now.

He was blown away by the enthusiasm and devotion of the fans every single time and a wave of gratitude washed over him when he looked into the passionate faces of his ‘kids’ who sang along to the songs he put so much heart in. The fans ate up what he offered them: They did everything he wanted them to and more. They sang whole verses for him so he could catch a breath every now and then and even laughed at his bad dad jokes.

 _“Where in the world did the time go?_  
_It's where your spirit seems to roam_  
_Like losing faith to our abandon_  
_Or an empty hallway from a broken home.”_

Standing there on the stage was like magic. He was surrounded by his best friends - his family - and his everyday troubles disappeared into the rear end of his mind. The here and now was all that mattered.

The stress, the panic attacks, the sleepless nights, the drugs and finally the crowning breakdown on live television where he smashed one of his favorite guitars and stormed off stage, cursing - all of that wasn’t important now and he didn’t waste a single thought on it.

 _“Well, don't look away from the arms of a bad dream_ _  
_ _Don't look away, sometimes you're better lost than to be seen.”_

Now the drums set in and an extra spotlight focused on Tré who wasn’t pulling faces like always but calmly drummed along to the piano. He knew that it was important to Billie. It didn’t slip his attention that singer in question wasn’t really singing into the crowd but almost absently stared into the sky when he didn’t have his eyes closed.

 _“I don't feel strange, it's more like haunted_  
_Another moment trapped in time_  
_I can't quite put my finger on it_  
_But it's like a child that was left behind._

 _So where in the world's the forgotten?_  
_Like soldiers from a long lost war_  
_We share the scars from our abandon_  
_And what we remember becomes folklore.”_

It was not only the first but also the last time that they would play this song in front of an audience. It probably sounded stupid and sappy to others, but he felt like it was best to put the song to rest here. It belonged to this place and no other.

 _“Well don't look away from the arms of a bad dream_  
_Don't look away, sometimes you're better lost than to be seen_  
_Don't look away from the arms of a moment_  
_Don't look away from the arms of tomorrow_  
_Don't look away from the arms of a moment_  
_Don't look away from the arms of love.”_

The crowd cheered for them one last time and with a last “Los Angeles - thank you very, _very_ much” he distanced himself from the microphone and blew a small, almost unnoticable kiss towards the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Well, I'm sick of you too"_

Green Day - Sick of Me

 

**09/12/1988**

It was way too hot for my liking.

I probably should have gotten used to the Californian climate by now - my family had lived in the Golden State for generations after all - but that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was my German genes who were fighting against the high temperatures and longed for the mild European weather, maybe it was just because the convertible’s thermometer was showing a proud temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit that would really make _anybody_ sweat.

My thighs were sticking to the beige-colored leather seat and I wiped away the little drops of sweat that ran down my temple with a lazy movement of my h and. I tied my long hair into a ponytail to free the back of my neck from the additional heat of the thick curtain and to let the breezes of air cool it down. Fortunately, I had inherited my mother’s blonde hair as opposed to my dad’s dark curls that would have made the top of my head feel like a hot stove top at this time of day. Even though the wind around us took care of the needed refreshment, the heat that beat down on my tanned skin was almost unbearable.

The street before us flickered in the distance and looked like it was covered by a thin layer of water. If only. Not a single drop of water had fallen from the sky in the past few days.

“Oh no,” Brad whined from the driver’s seat. His eyes that were covered by his dark sunglasses darted in my direction just to dart away back to the street before us again. “I like it when wear your hair down.”

I rolled my eyes in amusement and patted his cheek comfortingly.

“I’m so sorry,” I said and twisted my lips into a pout. “But in this weather I can’t afford to care about what you like. If I have to walk around with my hair down all day long, I’m going to die.”

He hummed. “Fuck the summer.”

“Don’t say that too loudly, or else the Big Guy up there is gonna hear you and send us a flood,” I said jokingly.

“Let him. At least you’ll take the tie out of your hair again.”

“You should really reconsider your priorities.”

“My first priority is always you, of course.” He gave me a crooked grin.

“You mean my hair.”

“Every part of you.”

He grabbed my wrist to press a kiss on the back my my hand without removing his eyes from the windshield.

“Oh, I’m gonna swoon,” I said sarcastically.

“That's the plan,” he replied smugly and smirked to himself. “You know what, I really don’t want to go to school. Wanna drive somewhere else instead? Like the beach? You look like you could use some cooling off,” he suggested half-heartedly.

Today was the first day after the summer break and the first day in months we weren't able to spend relaxing at the pool or the promenade from morning to night. It was hard to get used to the idea that the afternoons would now be spent doing homework and studying, and that activities with friends would have to wait until the weekend. Brad was one year older than me and had even more work to do as a Senior, but for some reason he seemed to have much more time for his friends than I did.

I shrugged. “We’ll only have five periods today, I think I’ll survive it. We’ll just get our new timetable and tell Mrs Jones about our holidays. But after that, absolutely. We just have to stop by my house, I’ll have to put on my bikini…”

“Come on, what do you need a bikini for,” he leered. “I say we’ll save the time and drive to the beach directly. Plus, that way you'll avoid those tanning marks you hate so much.”

“Ha ha,” I said dryly. “In your dreams.”

“Is that so obvious?”

I giggled. “You better concentrate on the road before your beloved convertible kisses the next street lamp.”

To be honest, I was even kind of happy that school had finally started again, even though I would probably regret that thought in a few days when the everyday stress would inevitably take its course. I hadn’t seen my friends in what felt like ages, or talked to them on the phone, because my family had spent one of the three summer months with my aunt in Miami, and Alexandra and Magdalena hadn’t shown their faces in the suburb either. I had started to become bored and almost - _almost_ \- had yearned for the monotonous lessons just to finally be able to see my ladies again on a regular basis.

Brad parked his car in one of the free parking spots in front of the school grounds. We were pretty late for our standard and were lucky to find a free spot.

A few people were already lingering in the shade of the trees, talking to each other. On the small mural next to the trees a few smoking punks and boys and girls in band shirts kept to themselves and didn’t seem all that interested in what was happening around them. To them, the first day of school was probably less exciting, considering that they didn’t do much other than hanging out together and smoking dope all summer long anyway. I had nothing against them and I didn’t mean that in a bad way, it was just a fact. I would have had a problem if I hated stoners, after all 80 percent of our school smoked weed on a regular basis, if not more. It was part of everyday life, just like breathing, eating, drinking, surfing, cigarettes, alcohol, and parties. I had never tried it myself - I just never had the opportunity.

Brad pulled his sunglasses from his nose and granted me a look into his chocolate brown eyes that I loved so much, and once again I almost melted away.

He let his eyes wander around the schoolyard with utmost disgust.

“This sucks,” he grumbled sullenly. “I’ve had enough already. I want to go back into the car and get away from here as quickly as possible.”

“How many lessons have you got today?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Way too long if you ask me.”

“I’m sure it will pass faster than you think.”

“Meh.”

He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tightly against his chest, which resulted in a wild swarm of butterflies coursing through my tummy.

“It’s not too late to leave yet,” he said and pressed a lingering kiss onto my lips.

I could practically feel the eyes of several schoolmates piercing into my back as we stood there, entangled and evidently not being able to keep our hands off each other. Actually, this sort of attention made me a little uncomfortable. I would rather we keep these displays of affection to ourselves but Brad didn’t seem to have the slightest problem with showing off in public. Which was probably a good sign for me, because he was showing everyone that he belonged to me. And yet I still felt my face getting warmer from embarrassment. To others we must surely seemed like a totally annoying, repulsive, lovestruck pair.

“Better not.” I smiled up to him when he finally let go of me. “I don’t want to come across as unreliable on the first day. I guarantee you that they would call our parents should we just stay away for no reason. Sorry…”

He sighed and hung his head.

“You’re right.”

Hand in hand and as closely to each other as possible, as if we were fearing the moment our paths would separate in the hallway, we walked to the entrance of the school and were almost slain by the volume inside and a backpack flying past our heads.

“I missed this,” Brad said with a blank face.

“Same,” I mumbled unimpressed.

“Well then,” he said and nudged my chin lovingly with his knuckle. “We’ll meet in the parking lot after fifth period.”

 

I had a little bit of trouble crossing the hallway on the way to my locker without getting punched in the sides by fifteen elbows. Was I imagining things or were there a lot more Freshmen this year than in the last few years?

The hallway was bursting at the seams and showed an alarming similarity to a battlefield. I constantly had to watch out to not step on any bags lying around on the floor like mines or to not walk against other people who were running across the hallways screaming and without care or regard, and greeting their friends they hadn’t seen over the break. Here and there I had to dodge school utensils that were flying from one side of the hallway to the other and fortunately managed to not lose an eye.

“Jenny!” I suddenly heard a high pitched voice call to my right and found myself in a literally breathtaking hug before I even had a chance to react to my name. The familiar sweet perfume that unmistakably belonged to Alexandra entered my nose. “We were looking for you everywhere, where were you?”

She put me at arm’s length and seized me up from head to toe before she shook her head disapprovingly and clicked her tongue.

“Were you home all three months? You’re still just as pale as you were before.”

“Charming as always,” Maggie, who was standing next to Lexie, commented with a wide grin and hugged me as well.

“Amen to that,” I giggled and crammed my backpack into my locker.

“For your information, I was in Miami and I _got_ a tan, look…”

I moved my shirt to the site at the neckline and showed her my tanning line, but she pulled a incredulous face.

“Sweetie, am I supposed to see something there? I can’t see anything but a thin line that is much paler than the rest of you.”

“Wow, it’s not _that_ bad…,” I mumbled in a huff and changed the topic before she could make me feel any worse about my appearance. “Maggie, how was it in Venezuela?”

“Wonderful”, she said dreamily but was interrupted by Lexie again.

“She hooked up with a guy,” Lexie snitched biliously and crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m the only one of us who’s still single now. It’s embarrassing.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Thanks Lexie. I was just about to tell her that myself. Control yourself, you old tattletale. Next time I'm not gonna tell you shit before Jenny knows.”

“Seriously?” I grinned. “You have a boyfriend?”

“Yeeees,” she said and beamed at me. “His name is Enrico and he’s my grandma’s neighbor’s kid. I’ve actually known him for an eternity but there was always just friendship, if anything. And now… well… when I was staying there one thing happened after another and now we’re… together.”

“Oooh, Gosh, it’s just like in the movies!” I squealed delightedly.

“Uhm, hello? Am I invisible?” Lexie huffed and put her arms on her hips. “Guys, I’m declaring a state of emergency - I can’t just stay single when both of you are screwing hot guys.”

“Oh god, Lexie,” Maggie breathed. Her gaze dropped a bit and her cheeks turned pink, well, at least as pink as her brown skin allowed. “We didn’t… you know…” She looked around and lowered her voice. “... _do it._ ”

“As if!” Lexie gave her a superior grin. “You can't fool me. Who spends a couple of weeks with a hot guy without sleeping with him? It’s a completely natural thing, right Jenny?”

I rummaged in my locker for an extra long time and hoped that the school bell would save me from justifying myself in front of Lexie right then and there.

“Also, he’s living in Venezuela so I’m practically just as alone as you are…,” Maggie mumbled.

“Do you trust him, then?” Lexie asked suspiciously. “I mean, men basically win the jackpot with a long distance relationship. They have a hot chick on hand - you’re welcome Maggie - and can whore around on the side as much as they want without the girlfriend noticing.”

“Not every man is like Chad, Lexie.”

Until March Chad and Lexie had been _the_ dream couple of the school until Lexie received an anonymous hint and caught him behind the janitor’s shed, groping at a girl from Junior year who hadn’t seemed to mind at all. She’d been single ever since and kept nagging me and Maggie about needing a new exciting love affair to show Chad that she could be happy without him.

“I hope so. At least Brad seems to be faithful to Jenny,” she said with a sigh and threw her brown hair over her shoulder.

“He is,” I said. I was convinced that Brad was the best boyfriend I could have wished for. He was attentive, charming, loving and, most importantly, patient.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but can one of you get me a man? I don’t know what you’re doing but it seems to be working,” Lexie whined.

I was just about to respond when the shrill school bell interrupted the loud turmoil that was going on around us. Finally.

“We’ll continue this in the canteen. We shouldn’t be late to class,” I said quickly and slammed my locker shut with almost a little too much enthusiasm.

“Yeah, yeah. Mrs Jones is going to be late anyway because she still has to get our timetables,” Lexie said. “Relax.”

“I’m not taking that risk,” I replied.

“Nerd,” they sang and giggled like two little school girls.

 

Lexie’s words should prove to be true because itn really took a couple of minutes for Mrs Jones to enter the classroom. The majority of the class was sitting in their spots but here and there a few people were missing who had probably assumed the same thing as Lexie. Her and Maggie who occupied the two seats on my left conversed silently, while I took my time to examine my classmates that I hadn’t seen in three months.

Paul Singer, who was picking his nose in the last row, indicated signs of a testosterone boost in form of facial hair and Angelica Hunter had obviously lost a few pounds and her breezy summer dress that I had never seen her wear before indicated that she seemed to feel much more comfortable in her skin. 

Jason Relva was sitting by the wall in the second to last row was absorbed in a book. He seemed to have grown around 8 inches and had his previously shoulder-length brown hair styled into a short, platinum blond mohawk. I had to admit that it didn’t look half bad. It definitely had a lot more style than the long hair he used to have, which had made him look more like a hippie than a punk, the subgroup to which he belonged without a doubt.

The last missing students showed up gradually, and unsurprisingly they were the same people I had previously seen smoking on the mural. It was easy for everyone to see that in this moment they would rather be anywhere else but in this stuffy classroom. They made their way into the last row with scuffing steps and dropped behind their desks. Jason put his book aside and turned around in his seat to engage them in a conversation.

Obviously Billie had felt my blatant stare on him, because now he looked in my direction and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

I raised one eyebrow in return but averted my eyes a moment later to prevent things from getting awkward.

In this moment Mrs Jones rushed into the room with her brown briefcase in hand.

“Here I am, my dears. Sorry for the delay, but I had to pick up your timetables in the office.” Lexie shot me a meaningful glance. “That place is in pure chaos, let me tell you. But now I’m here.”

She ordered us to form a circle with our chairs, which looked more like a swollen egg in the end, and joined us. One person after another told the class about their summer break and it seemed like the majority had actually spent their entire holidays in this boring town. If I had been forced to sit at home for three whole months, I would have lost it.

“My daddy invited me to a shopping tour in New York,” Lexie keenly told everyone when it was her turn. “And then we watched the horseraces in the Hamptons.”

“Well, doesn’t that sound incredibly exciting,” Billie said under his breath but Lexie heard him and she wouldn’t be Lexie if she just took it without retaliating.

“Yes, it was, actually. I don’t want to know what _you_ did the entire break,” she snapped and scrutinized him with raised eyebrows. “Except killing your brain cells one by one with laced two dollar joints and rotting on your couch like the pathetic person you are.”

“Alexandra, please!” Mrs Jones warned harshly but Billie shrugged it off.

“Wow, it’s almost as if you were secretly watching me from outside my window the entire break,” he challenged. “Is there something I should know about? You can profess your undying love to me out in the hallway if you’re too embarrassed to do it righ here in front of everyone. Or your obsession, whatever you wanna call it.”

Mike was howling. Jason hid his face behind his hand but he couldn’t really hide his grin either. All in all Maggie and I were the only ones in the classroom who were able to keep a straight face.

It was kind of funny, I had to admit, but I wouldn’t dream of stabbing my friend in the back like that.

Lexie turned red and huffed angrily. “Oh, shut the hell up.”

“Enough!” yelled Mrs Jones. “It’s the first day of school and you’re already fighting? If I hear _one_ more word from the two of you, you’re welcome to spend the afternoon in detention and continue your dispute there.”

Billie held up his hands in defense but took the opportunity to give Lexie a cheeky wink when Mrs Jones wasn’t looking in his direction. She showed him her middle finger in return which only made him grin more broadly.

Here we go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billie and Jason will remain side characters for the first few chapters, so there will be chapters where they make only a small appearance or none at all. All in due time, though.


	3. Chapter 3

_“You better swallow your pride_ _  
_ _Or you're gonna choke on it”_

Green Day - No Pride

 

Maggie and I were almost relieved when Lexie found another topic to obsess about after we had to listen to her ranting on about Billie and his “incredibly shameless way to speak to her” for three straight hours. It was neither a really pleasant nor an exciting change of topic but both of us were happy to not hear the name “Armstrong” anymore - we were both sick and tired of it.

Apparently Tanya from her math class had the audacity to show up in school with a handbag that had a certain resemblance to the handbag that Lexie had gotten herself during her shopping trip in New York and was wearing on the same day as well.

“This bag is one-hundred percent just fake, cheap shit,” she bitched with a wrinkle of her nose and a disdainful look in Tanya’s direction. “She doesn’t even have enough money to get a proper haircut, how is she supposed to afford a bag like this? Look at the material, the leather starts flaking just from looking at it. God, everyone is going to think that we went shopping together and are now somehow best friends. I can never show my face with this bag here again…”

I tried to simply tune out Lexie’s voice. Her ability to rage on about the littlest things for hours and taking everything way too personally was quite entertaining every now and then but it became pretty draining eventually. For me probably more so than Lexie since she had proved to have a lot of stamina in that matter. I had surely missed Lexie - her way to badmouth others, on the other hand… I got a queasy feeling when thinking about the hateful comments poor Tanya would have to endure now, without ever having knowingly provoked it or being responsible for it in any way. On the one hand I was glad I wasn’t in her skin, on the other I felt sorry for her.

“Brad and I wanted to go to the beach after school. You wanna come with us?” I asked eventually to steer the conversation in a more pleasant direction.

Maggie agreed immediately, happy about not being forced to listen to Lexie’s gossip anymore. “I’m so in. The heat is killing me. All I wanna do is jump in the sprinklers over there _right now_.”

But my hopes of talking about something other than everything that was annoying Lexie so much for more than ten seconds was brutally destroyed by Lexie who seemed to have a bone to pick with absolutely everyone and everything today.

She just shrugged and looked at her manicured fingernails. “Fine by me, but promise me that you and Brad will hold back your flirting a bit. I can’t stand it anymore,” she said casually, if not bored.

“You’re just jealous because you don’t have a boyfriend,” Maggie responded dryly.

“Yes, maybe. But that doesn’t change the fact that Jenny is handling my situation very insensitively.”

I looked at her incredulously. For God’s sake, would it never end?

Of course it was sad that Chad had apparently cheated on Lexie and she hadn’t managed to get a new boyfriend, even though roughly a third of the male student body were lying at her feet. Why couldn’t Lexie just be happy for me for a change, instead of only granting me some happiness when she herself was one-hundred percent satisfied with her own life? Being friends with Lexie definitely had its perks but, heavens, moments like this weren’t one of them. And her behavior was slowly getting on my nerves.

“I will try,” I answered coolly. “But be careful not to pee yourself when Brad is taking my hand. Or comes three feet too close to me and the sexual tension will be too much for you to handle.”

“No reason to get so bitchy,” Lexie purred quietly, as she always did when she heard something she didn’t like. “I just gave you a friendly suggestion to moderate your public flirting when there are other singles present who have been cheated on not long ago. That’s not exactly easy.”

“Oh god, guys, you are stressing me out so much. Just enjoy your first day together after a long time without jumping at each other’s throats,” Maggie joined in, upset, and sounded almost like Mrs Jones a few hours ago. “I’ve really had it up to here.”

And Lexie’s mood actually seemed to improve, but not because of her returning joy of our reunion or her anticipation about our trip to the beach later, but because of the scene that was unfolding not even 30 feet away from us behind the infamous janitor’s shack. Her sulky face turned, not into a happy smile, but a sardonic smirk of absolute glee.

Two well-built boys - judging from their physique they could belong to the football team - were pressing a shorter, lankier boy against the wall by his collar and taking delight in his miserable attempts to free himself from their firm grips.

We were standing too far away to understand them but the guys’ posture said more than enough.

The situation was obvious and I was a little appalled by how Lexie could find this view so comical. It was absolutely atrocious behavior that only cowards were capable of and I wanted nothing more than to remove myself from the scene. But that wouldn’t change the fact that a helpless boy was being beaten up by two older hooligans. Me looking away wouldn't help anyone but myself.

“Well,” Lexie giggled and looked extraordinarily smug. “I think you call that karma.”

I frowned for a moment, confused, until the scales fell from my eyes. I looked back to the boy who was being tormented. I knew him. I knew him very well.

It was Billie.

The feeling of disgust now burned like searing pyrosis in my throat.

“Oh, get outta here,” I spew disdainfully. “Alexandra, do you have something to do with this?”

My serious tone of voice and the fact that I wasn’t using her nickname seemed to have the desired effect, because all at once Lexie’s grin vanished from her face and was replaced by a self-conscious expression.

“No,” she said innocently.

“You’re not serious, are you?!” I asked bewildered. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! I can’t believe this!”

“Jenny, I swear to everything that is holy to me that I have nothing to do with this,” Lexie reaffirmed vehemently. “I wouldn’t just sign up two boys just to beat up a guy, just because he got on my nerves. Who do you think I am?”

“I really don’t know what to think about any of this,” I countered and dismissively crossed my arms in front of my chest.

“I have nothing to do with this. People like him are being bullied all the time, even without my assistance. You believe me, right? Jenny, you know me, I would never do such a thing.”

I shot her another dark glare and watched as the two rowdies, who had already let go of Billie, walked back towards entrance of the school building, laughing. Billie still stood there by the wall, visibly furious and holding his bleeding nose while cursing.

“You were bitching about him for hours and wished the plague on him. Don’t you think it’s a little bit suspicious that he gets beaten up by two guys not much later?”

“Are you crazy?” Lexie exploded and tipped her finger against her forehead. “What kind of monster do you think I am? And, fucking hell, why is this pest even so important to you?! I thought you were my friend!”

The sight of Lexie made my anger slowly wane and guilt started to prey on my conscience. Lexie’s eyes were glistening suspiciously which was nearly the most shocking thing about the entire situation. Ever since I’d known her I had never seen her cry, not even when she found out about Chad’s betrayal. I always assumed that it was beneath her to show weakness by crying in front of other people. It didn’t matter if they were strangers or friends - she probably wouldn’t even cry in front of her own parents. The revelation that it was me who was giving her such a hard time felt like a punch in the gut. It couldn’t be true that one of her best friends of all people was responsible for breaking down her walls.

Lexie wasn’t a monster. Maybe she wasn’t bad at delivering verbal blows but she would never be capable of such an act. What gave me the right to talk to my friend like that? My _friend!_

I would have loved to hit myself right now, or even better, let Lexie hit me. Hell, I deserved it.

“Lexie-” I began ruefully with the intention to apologize for my idiotic behavior but Lexie refused.

“You know what? Kiss my ass. I don’t have to listen to this any longer. Just go to him and do whatever you want with him, if he means so much to you. I don’t care. You can go to the beach without me.”

“Lexie, please -”

“See you, Maggie,” she said briefly and stalked back to her own car, without even acknowledging me with one look.

“Okay. Wow. That was… harsh,” Maggie piped up hesitantly and gave me a doubting look. “I mean… yeah, Lexie is pretty crass sometimes but this… no not even she would be capable of that.”

“Maggie, I’m so -”

“Don’t apologize to me,” she interrupted. “I don’t need an apology.”

I wanted to cry. “Oh Mags, please kill me. I’m such a fucking idiot.”

Maggie nodded but gave me a comforting smile. “Don’t work yourself up about it. You’ll work things out. In a few days you’ll be able to laugh about it again.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I said sullenly.

“Nonsense. Just wait a bit until she calms down. At least she didn’t plunge her heel into some Freshman’s junk in her anger,” she joked half-heartedly and coaxed a very miserable smirk out of me. “So it can’t really be that bad.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Maggie said, fiercely optimistic as always. “And now go and help out Billie.”

Next to Billie, Mike, and me, Maggie was probably the only person in this entire school who knew that Billie and I had a shared history. Since Elementary School and to the last year of Middle School we had been almost inseparable and spent almost every free afternoon together. How it ended is almost disappointingly unspectacular. It had no real reason other than that we simply drifted apart after our graduation from Middle School. Out of sight, out of mind. My family had moved from Rodeo - a depressing dump with no schools, no work and no clean air to breathe - two towns away into the sunny Pinole so that I wouldn’t have to drive six miles to my school with the school bus, and my little sister Kaylee wouldn’t develop any illnesses or disabilities because of the bad air and the lack of sunlight. Billie however stayed in Rodeo with Mike, visited a different High School, found new friends - just like me. And even though Billie’s school had gone bankrupt one and a half years ago and he had had to transfer to Pinole High, we hadn’t exchanged as much as two words. Until today.

“Here. I think that’s better than your sleeve,” I said timidly when I came to a halt next to him and held pack of tissues out to him that I had fished out of my bag.

Billie stopped in his movement, the shirt’s fabric still held to his nostril, and looked back and forth between my face and the pack of tissues in my hand.

“Thanks,” he said quietly and took it.

“No problem. Where’s Mike?” I asked when I suddenly realised that the lanky boy you would normally never catch Billie without wasn’t present.

“Detention,” he mumbled.

I whistled appreciatively. “On the first day already? That’s an accomplishment.”

He just shrugged.

It was an extremely awkward situation. We hadn’t had anything to say to each other in the last years, and we still didn’t, but I didn’t have the heart to just disappear and leave him alone again. It would have felt wrong.

I leaned against the wall next to Billie who had lowered himself to the ground, dabbed his bleeding nose with the tissue and remained silent.

After a few seconds of silence however, Billie suddenly looked up to me and seized me up warily as if I was about to tear down my friendly mask at any moment to punch him, just like the two guys before. “Why are you even so nice to me?”

I frowned. “Why wouldn't I be?”

He shrugged. “Well, you’re one of the cool kids now. Isn’t it your life’s mission to make us losers' lives hell or something?”

“Am I?”

“Do you have to answer every question with another question?”

“No. Listen, if you want me to go, I can leave you alone.”

“No no, stay. Unless, you know, you’re concerned about your good reputation when you’re seen with me,” he said casually and kept dabbing the blood from his nose.

I groaned. “What’s that supposed to mean? Can’t I even talk to you for once without you questioning my motives?”

“No, alright, calm down. It’s just a bit weird, you know? That’s all. We’ve ignored each other for the last years, and now… well, now I have your tissues. If that isn’t fate then I don’t know.” He grinned. “Just like a fairytale.”

I turned my face to the side to hide my chuckle. A bit of chatter didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to keep up my casual facade in front of him or that I would pretend that the last one and a half years hadn’t happened.

“Mh-hm. What was that about with Lexie earlier?”

He shrugged. “Her pretentious act is pissing me off. ‘Oh my rich daddy bought me so many great things and I watched horses running around with all of my rich friends because that’s what rich people do. Blah, blah, blah,” he mimicked her with a squeaky voice and I almost laughed at his astonishingly accurate imitation of her voice. “Hearing that makes me sick.”

It didn’t really surprise me at all that Lexie and Billie couldn’t stand each other. They were like day and night, like fire and water. Just polar opposites. Lexie embodied everything that was against Billie’s values and, unlike her, he grew up in modest conditions (his mother had to find a second job to feed her kids and married again) and, unlike her again, didn’t wear the most trendy clothes. But I couldn’t remember ever having heard a complaint out of his mouth, except maybe about his abhorrent stepfather.

“Oh, she didn’t mean it like that. She was just asked what she did during the holidays, so she told everyone about it,” I tried to defend Lexie.

“I don’t think so,” he countered doubtfully.

“If you knew her like I do, then-”

He laughed. “I don’t have to get to know her better to know that she’s a shallow jackass.”

“She’s still my friend.”

“Yeah, for whatever reason. That’s always been a mystery to me.”

I blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but you don’t really seem like the type of person who would voluntarily hang out with someone like Alexandra White.”

I kept calm about it. With every other person I would have taken offence due to Lexie’s good reputation, but I felt strangely flattered to hear that from someone who couldn’t stand Lexie if his life depended on it. Yet at the same time it kind of felt like treason to stab my friend in the back in the presence of her nemesis, of all people.

I deemed it best not to answer that but to turn the tables instead.

“By the way, who were the two guys who beat you up?”

Suddenly he looked everywhere but in my eyes and his grin turned into a disinterested face. “Oh, just a few wankers. It doesn’t matter,” he dodged.

“Doesn’t matter?” I asked incredulously. “These “few wankers” just beat you up minutes ago and gave you this bloody nose. It _does_ matter. I think you should definitely report that to the principal so that they can get punished.”

He got up and held the blood-smudged pack of tissues back to me. “Thanks for your help, but that’s not necessary.”

“Uhh… you can keep it. But seriously, how can you not care? If they aren’t put in their place, they’ll never learn from it and do it again.”

“Sorry, but I think that’s my business only.”

He mounted his backpack and got ready to go, which only made stubborn me follow him.

“It’s not just your business when they beat up other people too. Maybe you’re not their only victim.”

“For real, let it go,” he tried to shake me off and buried his hands in his pockets.

It was more than obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it but I didn’t give up. It was for his own good, I was convinced of that. ‘Sometimes your well-being has to be forced on you’, my parents always used to say.

“If you’re not going, I will,” I threatened and crossed my arms in front of my chest.

He stopped walking and slowly turned around to face me. His face reflected disbelief, anger and … was it fear?

“Don’t you dare!”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

He groaned angrily and ran his hand through his black, tousled hair. For a few seconds he silently watched me with a scrutinizing glare, as if he contemplated if he could still trust me, before he breathed in and out deeply.

“Because, one, it has nothing to do with you, and two, it accomplishes nothing. If they’re suddenly getting punished, they will know who ratted them out. They’ll get detention and then? Do you really think that two football players will get suspended? The coach would go to the barricades and the administration can save themselves the stress. As soon as they’d complete their ridiculous punishment, you could bring me tissues every day for the rest of the year. I mean, think it through.”

“You’re scared,” I realized astounded.

He rolled his eyes. “Bullshit, I’m not afraid of them. I’m just not really eager to get beaten up every day until graduation, can you blame me?”

“But we have to do _something?”_

He smiled humorlessly. “Oh well, welcome to my life.”

I bit my lip. How long had this been going on? And why had I never found out about it? You didn’t have to _talk_ to someone to notice that they’re being harassed by other students. I wasn’t stupid, everyone knew that some people in High School get the short end of the deal and are bullied by others, that’s just how it was. I just never assumed that Billie was one of those people. Why didn’t I realize that I was walking around with blinders in the last years and others had to suffer from my ‘if I don’t see it, it’s not happening’ attitude?

“I’m sorry,” I said crestfallen, what seemed to throw him off course a little.

“Huh?” he asked confused. “Why are you sorry?”

“If I had paid a little more attention to my surroundings instead of myself, maybe this wouldn’t be happening,” I said contritely.

To my great surprise he didn’t roll his eyes or anything else to express his anger about me, but just smiled crookedly.

“I don’t blame _you_ , but the wankers who beat me up.”

“But isn’t turning a blind eye just as bad as hitting someone yourself?”

“Well, yes, but… you didn’t actively look away, you… just weren’t paying attention. You also helped me today, which is more than any other regular person in this school has ever done for me.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Seriously, blaming you for this would really be too easy.” He winked. “I’m not that bitter.”

“I think you should still go to the principal.”

“Now don’t ruin it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to vesper93 and edgycactus. Thanks for your support <3

_“Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut”_

Green Day - Walking Alone

 

The situation still hadn’t sorted itself out after a week. Who could have known that Lexie was so damn stubborn?

Okay, I could have. After two years of being friends with her I should have known her character by now. Or so you would think. Still, I was a little bit surprised that she wasn’t even willing to make an exception for the sake of our friendship and give in voluntarily. Despite everything she proved to have an extraordinary amount of stamina when it came to showing me the cold shoulder and treating me like I was nothing more than a meaningless whiff of air that wasn’t even worth dancing through her magnificent, amber hair. Since exactly Monday afternoon I seemed to have moved to the top of her blacklist, because she didn’t just ignore me - she avoided me as if I was some obscure, infested zombie.

I was at my wit’s end - no matter what I said or did, I just couldn’t find the right way or the right words that could maybe convince her to forgive me.

Even the previously so optimistic Maggie with her “everything is going to sort itself out” attitude made no secret of it anymore that I was the only person responsible for my misery. Because if I hadn’t been so mean to Lexie and shanghaied her with wrong accusations, then she wouldn’t have to choose between us during recess. Blah, blah. blah.

As if I didn’t know that already. With every passing day that Lexie didn’t talk to me, the voice in my head that called itself my conscience became pushier, and its unnerving monologues longer.

I was happy that Maggie was at least willing to spend time with me even though she was mad at me, which pissed Lexie off temendously. Because obviously I didn’t deserve to have friends after what I did to her. I was a bad person and so on. I couldn’t bear the fact that Lexie was thinking of me like that. It drove me crazy.

Ruining a friendship on the first day of school was an accomplishment that was hard to beat by pretty much anyone. Who _did_ such a thing? If I had just shut up everything would be fine now, wouldn’t it? Why couldn’t I have just helped Billie without accusing Lexie? Of course I was thinking of this _after_ I caused the trouble. Stupid tongue that dared to be quicker than my brain.

I just couldn't believe that our friendship was ruined because of a trifle like this. The remorse I had felt in the beginning turned to sadness, turned to incomprehension, turned to bitterness, turned to anger, and ultimately into a mixture of all of the above.

If Lexie didn’t want to talk to me, fine. If she wanted to ignore me, fine. If she wanted to badmouth me to make herself feel better, fine. If she thought she was better than me, _fine_.

I still had Maggie. I still had Brad. And as shallow as that might sound, I still had all of my classmates who kind of looked up to me because they were under the illusion that I was Lexie’s friend. She wasn’t the center of my world, not everything was about her, god dammit. She was gonna see how well I was managing without her.

A long sigh escaped my lips. If only the remorse and the sadness had the decency to exit my brain as quickly as bitterness and anger had spread in there. What I needed now was a button that could shut off all the unwanted feelings inside me, that could make me completely empty and make me forget my stupid troubles, to make me not care about this issue anymore. To make me repress how shitty I felt and what a bad friend I was.

But it wasn’t that easy. And just like that I was doomed to spin around in my mixed feelings until time would heal the wounds. But how long did that take, on average? Days, weeks, months? A year? I wasn’t the most patient person.

Would we ever be able to talk again like two adults? Would we be able to laugh together, sip Iced Lattes in the mall and watch the Denver Clan at her place?

Oh, who was I kidding? I missed Lexie. A lot. Yes, I was still mad at her, but I missed her.

Why did everything have to be so fucking shitty and complicated? Where did the simplicity of my life go?

The weather couldn’t have contrasted my mood more. The sun seemed to enjoy mocking me by shining brighter than she ever had before. ‘You feel shitty? Well, I feel brilliant!” The sun could go and get stuffed.

And Physics too.

The piece of paper in front of me was still unwritten and the Physics book opened but half-heartedly read.

Why did I even let Maggie convince me to spend the free period doing homework? Who cared if Jemma’s plum stand was falling off a cliff and who cared how long the plums took to reach the ground during a slight west wind? I certainly didn’t. For all I cared, Jemma’s plums could pierce the earth’s crust on the way down and go straight to hell. And Jemma right after. I never liked plums anyway.

After the free period Double American History would be waiting for me and words couldn’t nearly describe my aversion. Maybe I should just fake sickness to go home. The school nurse wouldn’t notice that anyway since her competence as a medic was limited to prescribing ice for every medical problem that arrised. She wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole if I told her that I had thrown up into the bushes twice on the way to her office.

But the bad conscience that would plague me on the way home would kill me eventually, right after my parents if they found out that I had skipped two lessons. I didn’t need another weight on my conscience.

I was a way too responsible and considerate person to have deserved any of this.

Lost in my thoughts I played with my new ballpen and let the clip hit against the cool metal. Technically speaking the ballpen was neither new nor mine. Algebra-Paul had borrowed it to me but since his mouth had violated my pencil in ninth grade, this beautiful pen was now mine. He would have had forgotten about borrowing it to me by the end of the day anyway.

_Clack, clack … clack … clack, clack, clack … clack…_

“Stop it,” Maggie, who was sitting on the chair across from me, hissed and tried to stab me with her eyes as quietly as possible to not incur the librarian’s wrath.

“Stop what?” I asked slowly and pulled the clip, just to let it hit against the pen again.

 _“That.”_ She glared at me. “If you’re not doing your homework then at least don’t annoy me with this. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Alright,” I answered sluggishly and let the ballpen fall down with a clunk next to my Physics book. “Calm down.”

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly, then lowered her eyes back to her book again and knitted her brows in concentration.

“It would all be much less complicated if you just apologized to her,” she mumbled under her breath.

I let my head drop into my neck with a frustrated groan.

“It would all be much less complicated if she didn’t run away from me the entire time and listened to me for a change,” I hissed.

“Pah! She gave you the opportunity to approach her yesterday. I know because I convinced her to do it,” she whispered with a half-smile on her lips.

“Oh yeah, and when exactly did that happen?”

“In History. There was a free spot next to her and I didn’t sit there on purpose so that you could. We had agreed to it. But you didn’t take the opportunity, so…”

What the-?!

“WHAT KIND OF SHITTY OPPORTUNITY WAS THAT?” I exploded.

“SHHHT!” Three or four annoyed voices rose in the room. Mrs Sanders shot us an especially evil glare and pointed at the “Silence” sign next to the exit with her index finger.

"What, am I supposed to  _smell_  that madame is lowering herself to tolerate my presence?” I continued with a hushed tone, but not one iota less resentful. “How am I supposed to figure that out, can you tell me that? No person would have figured that out, seriously. I have never heard so much bullshit before.”

“Calm - down,” she hissed and bent over the table. “I don’t want to be thrown out of the library because of you.”

I laughed dryly. “You want _me_ to calm down? That’s rich. I can’t believe this. You’re both kidding me right? Why are you using such devious tricks instead of just talking to me like normal people do? I thought you were my friends.”

“We are,” Maggie reassured. “We just thought you would look out for signs, that’s all.”

‘What signs? There were no signs’ I wanted to say but she beat me to it.

“Just try apologizing to her again after History. I think she will want to talk to you this time.”

“Did she tell you that?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s just a feeling.”

“Didn’t you have a ‘feeling’ on Monday that Lexie would calm herself down soon? Or that I would take the alleged chance yesterday to apologize to her? I don’t know if your ‘feeling’ is as reliable as you think these days.”

As soon as I finished speaking she loudly slammed her book shut and pushed it back into her bag. I watched her as she got up and moved her chair back to the table, as neat as she was.

“Why are you being so mean to me?! What have I done to you?”

“Don’t start with me now…”

 _“Don’t start wiith me now!”_ She mimicked me and pulled a face. “It’s no wonder Lexie doesn’t want to talk to you, as crazy as you are!”

And with that, she vanished before I had the chance to retort.

 

On the next day I was ignored by Maggie too, who now didn’t even have to try to divide her recess-time for both of us anymore, which made Lexie very happy. They had each other and I had no one. Not even Brad because he was a Senior and therefore we rarely saw each other at school, if at all. I’d just been lying to myself about that.

So I was alone. Just as Lexie had wanted. Hooray. At least I still had my spot by the window in the library and the company of dead trees who had to give their lives for Geometry books and bad romance flicks.

Sunken into my chair I stared out of the window and absently watched the clouds as they drifted past the sun. The blinding sunlight that was reflected by a white wall on the opposite side of the schoolyard hurt my tired eyes and I squinted to not be blinded as much.

My face and my arms were warm thanks to the sunlight and if I hadn’t been so tired, maybe it would have improved my mood.

I had given up on trying to concentrate on the book before me. The words were blurring in front of my eyes and I couldn’t remember a single sentence after reading it. I had fished it out of a random shelf, sat down at the empty window seat and opened a random page in the middle. I didn’t even know what the book was about. There were no pictures, that I knew.

With my head propped on my hand and half lying on the wooden table I tried with all my power to keep my eyes open which was getting more tedious by the minute. My eyelids were as heavy as lead and made it hard to not fall asleep on the spot. I had stayed awake to the morning hours to finish this damned homework for Mrs Rogers in AP U.S. History and had only gotten one or two hours of sleep. There was also the fact that the topic was deadly boring, which is why it took me even longer to finish it. I had constantly been tempted to just copy everything from the books and not rephrase it in my own words but I absolutely couldn’t afford that because if I got busted, all the work would have been for naught.

My tired out brain didn’t make an effort to stifle a yawn or cover my mouth for the sake of decency or pick up on anything that was happening outside a five foot radius.

That’s why I didn’t notice that a certain someone just strolled into the library, leafed through a book disinterestedly and then continued his way in direction of my table, slash, sleeping place.

“What’s up?” I heard this person’s voice next to me, closely followed by the scraping sound of a chair that pulled me out of my lethargy.

“Hmm?” I grumbled and looked up to identify the person who had dared to rudely awaken me from my slumber. “Why are you sneaking up like that…”

“I didn’t sneak up on you. You okay?” Billie asked and sat down on the chair the wrong way around and crossed his arms on the back of the chair. He looked much better than he had on Monday. But that wasn’t hard. He looked as he always did with the exception of his nose not being punched bloody. But still.

“Mhm. Tired,” I said simply and buried my head in my arms again.

“Partied too much?” he chuckled

“I wish…” I slurred. “Homework.”

“What?”

“Home-work.”

“What homework?” He asked horrified. I opened my eyes a slit. You could see in his face how hard his brain was working. “I didn’t do anything.”

“The one in History…” I jogged his memory and finally sat up straight. I wouldn’t do my back a favor on the long ran if I didn’t stop bending it like that. Mom was telling me since I’d been little that I should really correct my unhealthy posture or else I would walk around with a hunchback for the rest of my life. I had really believed that back then. Mom had her methods to force a healthy lifestyle upon us. I rubbed my face with my hands to chase away the tiredness and blinked a few times

“Oooh, fuck. What was that again?”

“The essay about the Pullman strike.”

“Shit, forgot about it. Can I copy yours?”

I glared at him. “I was sitting at it the entire night. How and especially when do you want to copy all of that?”

“The entire night? How much did you write?”

“Ten pages.”

“TEN PAGES?!” - “Shhht!” We heard Mrs Sanders hiss at us furiously - “You serious? It’s the first week, why don’t they ease up a little?” He continued with a hushed voice.

“You know why. The same reason as always. ‘We’re preparing you for college.’ I’m really losing interest in college right now…”

“So do I. Who cares about the Pullman strike anyway, whatever that is?”

“Nobody.” I sighed finished. “That’s why it took the entire night.”

“Well, fuck it. That woman isn’t expecting anything else from me anyway,” he said with a sigh and then, after a short moment of thinking, he spoke up again. “Wait, we’re not even in the same class. You’re in AP History, I’m not.”

“Oh,” I remembered. “Yeah, right. Sorry about that.”

“Wow, you really are tired. But that’s not why I’m here, actually. I wanted to ask you if you want to come to Eggplant’s Back to School party tonight.”

“Who is this Eggplant and what did the poor guy do to be punished with this nickname?”

He giggled. “That’s not a nickname, well not really. That’s really his name. Robert Eggplant, he’s a year below us. At least that’s what I was told...”

“Poor guy,” I repeated.

“So, are you coming? We’re playing.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Sweet Children,” he said with an extra layer of casualness but the proud glint in his eyes betrayed his real feelings.

“Ah.” I smiled. “So you finally have a name?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Took us long enough.”

“Sure, why not. I’m coming. I could use a little fun.”

He nodded with a smile and rose from his seat. “Cool, I’ll see you later then.”

“Wait!” I shouted when I realized that he didn’t even tell me where that party was, but he was already out of hearing range.

I stuffed my book back into a shelf where it certainly didn’t belong and hurried after him, without regard for Mrs Sanders’ murderous glare who would surely foam at the mouth if we kept going like this.

“Hey Billie, wait-”

“Yes?”

As soon as he turned around to me, that one person who I didn’t want to encounter now came out of the ladies room. I silently cursed my - or her - timing. How wonderful that she was catching me now of all times with the one person she hated the most - apart from me of course. When had my life become a bad soap opera?

She stopped dead in her tracks before us and looked back and forth between us before her surprised face turned into an arrogant mask. With a triumphant grin she folded her arms in front of her chest.

“You found a replacement for us quickly,” Lexie said disdainfully. “That didn’t take very long.”

 _Look at that, it speaks!_ I thought, but in reality, I didn’t feel like laughing at all. It was a nightmare.

Keep cool.

“Oh, you’re talking to me again?” I said and tried to sound disinterested but I could already feel the knowing twinge in my nose that warned me of my oncoming tears that I was trying to smother down with all my willpower.

She clicked her tongue arrogantly. “Not really. I’m just surprised at how low you can sink.” Her mocking glare turned to Billie.

_Keep cool._

“I liked you more when you kept your mouth shut,” I said bravely and probably destroyed every chance of ever seeing our friendship live up again.

Lexie rolled her eyes and stalked down the hallway on her high heels - were they even allowed here?! -, but not without warbling a “Bye you losers” at us.

As soon as she was out of range, Billie guffawed loudly.

“Dude, what the hell was that?! That was amazing! Did you see her face when you - … uh, you okay?” he questioned when he saw my hanging head.

The tears that I had managed to hold back before were now pouring out of my eyes silently and unstoppably. I tried to wipe them away with the back of my hand as inconspicuously as I could but it was hopeless. There were to many to hide. Everything was getting too much. First I lost Lexie, then Maggie, then school was stressing me out and on top of that I was tired out to no end.

“Do you always cry after you just handed it to someone?”

I felt my throat closing up and my face turning into an embarrassing grimace that I immediately tried to hide behind my hands. I had to let it out now before it started to build up inside me even more and broke out with an embarrassingly loud sob. At least Lexie wasn’t there anymore to make fun of my outburst..

I was such an idiot. A complete fucking idiot. I’d destroyed everything and even managed to make it a lot worse. It was all my fault.

My friends didn’t want anything to do with me anymore and I alone was responsible for it.

I heard Billie sliding down the wall next to me and clearing his throat. He patted my shaking shoulder awkwardly while I silently cried into my hands.

“There, there…”

I knew he was just trying to comfort me but he made it so much worse. Couldn’t he just go? Why was he doing that to himself? Why didn’t he just leave and save himself my emotional breakdown?

I wasn’t just crying out of stress and sadness anymore, but out of shame. I was so embarrassed to show weakness like this in public. I was such a baby.

But he didn’t really seem to mind for some reason, except for his obvious uncertainty how to handle a wreck like me.

He should just leave!

“Do you want me to leave you alone for a moment?” he asked quietly as if he had read my thoughts.

“No, stay,” I whined. “I’m fine, really. Everything is fine.”

“Uh-huh. I can see that. What did even happen between you two?”

What felt like half an hour later I had finally managed to calm down a bit and tell him what had really happened between us.

“You didn’t tell me where that party even is going to be,” I sniffled at some point, after I finished my story.

He looked at me as if I was stupid. “At Eggplant’s of course. It’s his party.”

I rolled my eyes impatiently. “And that’s where exactly?”

“Oh! Uh… How am I supposed to explain. Oh, we’ll just pick you up on our way, that’s easier.”

At least one thing I could look forward to. Now I just had to convince my parents to let me go.


	5. Chapter 5

_“Come with me and let's go for a ride  
_ _Follow me to the other side”_

Green Day – Best Thing in Town

 

I sullenly poked around with my fork in the vegetables that were wasting their existence on my plate. Mom had previously been standing in the kitchen, thrown a few deep-frozen chunks of green into a pot and stirred in it for a couple of minutes. She wasn’t a very excellent cook, but it usually was enough. When she wasn’t there, Nate or I would cook something for ourselves and Kaylee that we really wanted to eat. However, when she was at home she was the boss and decided what would be served. Which meant in this case to soft-boil a few carrots and peas, just to be able to say that she cooked _something_ . If we had to eat vegetables for dinner, I would have preferred it if it was something fresh and crunchy rather than nursing home food that you only had to squash with your gums. Everyone in this room had functioning teeth. Fine, Kaylee was missing two baby teeth since yesterday, but _she had teeth_.

Even her face mirrored absolute disgust about what was presented to her as dinner and if I hadn’t been so unenthused by it myself, maybe I would have been able to laugh about it.

I picked up an especially sloppy piece of carrot and inconspicuously let the fork disappear under the table where Cleopatra had made herself comfortable.

She perked up attentively and sniffed at the piece for a short moment, hoping for a juicy piece of meat, but immediately sank down on the floor with a soft whine and a peeved huff, and pointedly turned her head away.

 _You and me both_ , I thought and fought the urge to do the same.

Mom had put the entire family on a vegetarian, borderline-vegan diet after Linda from her aerobic course had somehow put the idea about this great new nutrition guide that turned her family upside down into her head. Apparently not even the dog was an exception to the rule, because one look into her untouched bowl told me that she had a bone to pick with Linda as well.

If at least there was something else on my plate than overcooked greens, everything would have been half as bad, but the sad thing was that there was really just this picture of misery, sorry, these nutritious veggies wasting away.

“Mhhhh,” Mom hummed excessively, “now that is something else.”

“That’s one way to say it,” Nate grumbled and put his fork next to his plate with finality. “Where’s the rest?”

“The rest?”

“Yes, the rest. You know, meat, potatoes… what dinner usually consists of.”

Mom pursed her lips which never meant anything good on principle.

“This is your dinner, Nathaniel. Either you eat what’s on the table or you don’t eat. As easy as that.”

My brother looked at her for a moment, his mouth ajar in disbelief. “Mom, I’m a still growing man, I need meat!”

“You’re 19 years old, you’re grown,” she replied coolly and shovelled another half-full spoon on her plate. “A little bit of green won’t hurt you.  Don’t be silly.”

“Oh, and what about Kaylee?” my brother challenged.

“And Cleo?” I added grimly.

“I want pancakes,” Kaylee whined miserably and shoved her plate as far away as she possibly could with her short arms. But her heartbreaking pout left mom cold.

“Kaylee, do you know how many calories there are in a single pancake?” she began with a smug smile. Kayle shook her head. “Too many.”

“But pancakes are so delish!”

She nodded in understanding, ran her long fingers over one of her light blonde plaits and then patted the top of her head. “I know, love. But it’s just like our pastor Chapman said. The sin is always the sweetest temptation. We have to learn self-restraint, that’s very important.”

Kaylee didn’t look very convinced. “Pancakes are sin?” she asked skeptically.

Mom nodded slowly. “Yes, sweetie. Do you remember the story of Jesus in the desert that Mrs Abrams told you during the children’s mass?”

Nate rolled his eyes and our unimpressed glances met, swiftly followed by a resigned head shake. As soon as the smallest chance popped up to turn an everyday situation into a religious lecture, mom was in her element.  She began to talk about Jesus and his trip to the desert, that I could probably recite word for word after many years of hearing this story repeatedly. He was so strong and devout and we should all follow his example.

“Be like Jesus, Kaylee,” she finished her sermon.

“But Jesus’s mommy didn’t tell him to go to the desert,” Kaylee said thoughtfully. “That’s different.”

Unlike Nate and I who gave Kaylee a big grin, Mom didn’t look impressed at all.

“Kaylee,” she said in a warning tone, “be careful of how you speak of Him. He hears all. And you,” she pointed at Nate and me, “stop encouraging her.”

“Oh come on mom, stop exaggerating,” Nate said. “Pancakes aren’t the devil.”

“Also, Kaylee is still a child, you really don’t need to put her on a diet. Look at her, she’s pretty thin already anyway,” I added. “And does Cleo really have to suffer from it too? She’s so tiny! She needs something decent to eat, or else she’s gonna shrink to half her size.”

Almost as if she understood me, Cleo let out a loud bark for her standards, which still wasn’t very threatening considering her age and size.

“Suffer? Oh please, who’s exaggerating now? Jennifer, a healthy diet won’t kill you,” she said and ignored my point skillfully. “I’m telling you this because I love you okay? Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“What?” I asked defensively and a little insulted. I looked down at myself. What was wrong with me?

“It’s obvious how much you love chocolate, love. You’re not exactly the thinnest.”

I looked down in embarrassment. She was right, I didn’t really have model measurements but with my 114 pounds I was still in the normal zone. And yet I suddenly felt like I took up way too much space.

I cleared my throat sheepishly, crossed my legs and straightened my posture a bit so that my legs looked a little thinner and my belly more even. I also put my fork next to my plate determinedly and crossed my arms in front of my chest. It wasn’t edible anyway.

Nate looked at me while shaking his head and took a deep breath.

“Where’s dad?” he asked in annoyance to change the topic.

Mom waved her hand and sent a quick glance to dad’s empty chair at the head of the table. “You know that. At work, as always. The poor man is working way too hard lately. From morning to evening he’s in the bank and then he’s working extra hours on top of everything.” Suddenly she looked very stressed. “If only he spent as much time with his family…” She shook her head slowly as if she wanted to come to her senses. “We should be thankful that he’s working so hard for us and that we can afford all of this.”

“Well, it’s Friday. Tomorrow is the weekend, so he’ll be back, won’t he?” Nate tried to comfort her and patted her hand awkwardly.

Mom nodded hastily. “Yes of course. He really needs a relaxed weekend.”

With a glance at my watch I realized I should probably speak up about tonight’s party if I didn’t want to risk climbing out of the window later and escaping over the roof. Mom and Dad had the annoying habit of entering my room (that I also couldn’t lock) unsolicited and unannounced, so secret late night trips were out of question.

“Mom, there’s this party…”

“A party?” she perked up. “School has just started.”

“Yeah, I know, but -”

“Don’t you have homework?”

“Sure, but it’s only Friday. I can do them tomorrow, there’s no rush.”

She shook her head and pressed her lips together in a firm line. “You shouldn’t favor fun over your duties, Jennifer. You’re sixteen years old now, old enough to know that.”

“Mom, it’s just one evening,” I pleaded. I knew that I wouldn't get far with the truth. If the sheer concept of a party was giving her such a hard time already, she would never let me go of she knew what kind of party it would be. To be honest, I didn’t really know myself but I had a rough idea. And I was sure that it wasn’t the kind of party where my mother would ever feel good about letting me go to. So I just had to invent something.

Lying wasn’t my strongest suit and it would be a miracle if my mother bought the bullshit that would come out of my mouth any second. I fixated a spot on the tablecloth and scratched on it with my fingernail.

“You know, it’s actually not really a ‘party’ in that sense,” I lied. “But more of a sleepover at Lexie’s with Maggie and a few other girls from my year. To celebrate our reunion after the break, so to speak. Nothing huge.”

She stopped in her movement and her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, with your friend Alexandra? Alexandra White?”

I nodded. “Yes and since it’s only the first week of school, we don’t have that much work to do. I could complete my homework in no time tomorrow.”

She opened her mouth to reply something, but closed it immediately and looked at me, deep in thought. Her head seemed to be rattling. The “White” name was something like mom’s Achilles’ heel. Lexie’s father was my father’s superior at work and mom was secretly hoping that my good relationship with Lexie could mean a promotion for my father in the future. If she knew that we weren’t talking to each other at the moment, she would be devastated. And I would be grounded. On top of everything, the Whites were loaded and influential, meaning: everything my mom would love to be.

“Well,” she started and folded her hands underneath her chin. “Alexandra always seemed like a decent girl to me.”

I allowed myself the tiniest confident smile.

“And since we’re practically neighbours, you wouldn’t have to drive far...”

Calling us neighbours was a bit of an overstatement, but the White family really didn’t live far from us. They lived in Hercules, the town next to ours, but their house - or their estate - was only a few feet away from our modest den. I really only had to walk up the hill to end up on the enviably green lawn in the huge garden of the family.

“And you’re sure her parents are at home?” she inquired.

I nodded quickly.

“Yeah, they’re home the entire weekend. Her mother wanted to bake brownies for us”, I said and fought the urge to pull a face. ‘Her mother wanted to bake brownies’? Holy shit, what was I talking about? Lexie’s mother had probably never touched an oven in her life and didn’t even know how to crack an egg or cook water. That’s what they payed the maid for. I prayed to God that mom didn’t know about that.

In case she was having doubts about my lie, she didn’t let it show.

“Alright.” I breathed out in relief. “Will your boyfriend Bradley be there too?”

“Uh, no. Just a ladies’ night,” I said quickly. Surely that was what mom wanted to hear.

“Good, good,” she said and nodded. “He’s a respectable boy -”

Nate rolled with his eyes. “As if,” he murmured.

“... but you know how men are -”

“Hey, I’m sitting right next to you,” he complained.

“ - They only want one thing.” She waved the wooden spoon around that she just used to shovel another half portion of veggies on her plate. Nate grumbled something about ‘unfair generalization’. “I wouldn’t have felt comfortable with you two spending the night at the same place.”

Brad would indeed and without a doubt use the occasion to have a secret fuck in one of the hundred rooms while everyone else was sleeping.  So far he couldn’t get much out of me except for a little making out and it could stay that way if it were up to me. But I felt that he was growing more and more impatient and frustrated with each time, which only increased my own nervousness and insecurity. I didn’t need to rub it under my mother’s nose that nothing had really happened yet. She would be unhappy enough to find out that sometimes I would lose my pants or my shirt during these make out sessions. If I told her everything about my boring life, I would probably be locked up in my room until I was 80 or married.

“So I can go?” I asked hopefully.

She sighed in resignation. “You may. But you’re back home no later than 10 A.M. tomorrow, understood?”

 

Someone cleared their throat behind me while I was turning my closet upside down in the search of the right clothes. Nate was leaning against the doorframe with crossed arms and looked at me with an impish smile.

“Well? Did someone tell a lie to go to a secret party?”

“Not so loud,” I hissed and inspected the hallway before pulling Nate in my room by his sleeve and closing the door behind him. “How do you know about the party?”

“I didn’t. But unlike mom, I can tell when you're lying,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s super easy to recognize.” He sat down next to Cleo on my bed, who immediately climbed on his lap to be spoilt.

“Oh.  Okay,” I replied a bit hesitantly. I bent over my drawer again and addressed myself to the task of finding clothes. Jeans, bright colors, and light blouses everywhere, but not a single dark piece, no studs and nothing that looked remotely punk. I wanted to dress up a little today, so I wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb in my Girl-Next-Door attire. I doubted that I would find anyone out of my usual social circle at this party, so it would be best to conform to the crowd. But sadly that would be harder than I thought if I wasn't able to conjure something punky fast. It was too late to drive to Richmond to go shopping, Billie’s invitation has been a little too last-minute for that.

With a frustrated huff I slang the drawer shut and stared angrily at the mountain of way too prissy clothes in my closet. No, that wouldn’t do.

“I have nothing to wear,” I complained and dropped down discouraged next to Nate who fixated me with a look that said ‘are you kidding me?’.

“‘Nothing to wear’? Jenny, you have two closets full of clothes.” He took a look at my floor. “And a lot more, apparently…”

“Yeah, but not the right thing. Nothing fits.”

“Why? Is one of your friends throwing a motto party?” He asked confused. “Or is it a traditional girl-thing to go crazy before every party? Like pre-game, just for hysteric women?”

I hit his shoulder with my fist.

“Ouch,” he sulked and rubbed his shoulder. “What was that for?”

“For calling me a hysteric woman, you jerk. And it’s not a motto party. Billie invited me to this house party from one of his buddies where his band will play,” I explained and gave him a meaningful look, hoping he would understand the gravity of my situation.

He paused to think. “Billie? Billie Joe?” I nodded. “Billie Joe Armstrong? Your childhood friend Billie Joe? The small, cute Billie with the devil’s curls?” His impish smile found its way back onto his face. “Billie Joe the playground hoe? Billy Joel? William Joseph Armstrong? The first fart-face on the moon? _That_ Billie Joe Armstrong?”

I rolled my eyes but had to smirk. Much to Billie’s chagrin, Nate had always loved inventing ridiculous nicknames for him and annoying him with them at every chance he got. In no way did that mean that Billie hadn’t fired back but unfortunately there wasn’t much room for creativity with ‘Nathaniel Young’.

“The one and only. Oh, you can add ‘Two Dollar Bill’ to your collection.’

“Two Dollar Bill?”

“He sells weed for two dollars at school, that’s how he got the name.”

“Two Dollar Bill… Two Dollar for the price, Dollar Bill like the note, and Bill like his name…” he pondered. “That’s kinda genius. Did he think of it himself?”

“No idea, to be honest. One year ago everyone suddenly started calling him that. Most don’t even know him by any other name.”

He looked at me seriously. “Jennifer, this is important. I can’t call him Two Dollar Bill when he thought of it himself. That’s like doing him a favor. The point of this is making fun of him.”

“How am I supposed to know? Until a few days ago we didn’t even talk to each other, so I’m not gonna question him about his life story. Go to him and ask him yourself.”

“Yeah, speaking of, how come my little, probably innocent sister gets invited to a punk party? Why this change of heart?” He lay down on his side and supported his elbow on my mattress to look at me. Cleo fell off his lap in the process and flopped on my blanket. She tried to growl at him in return, but noticed that it didn’t intimidate him, so she barked scathingly.

“It’s a long story,” I dodged and petted Cleo’s shiny brown fur. “I had a fight with Maggie and Lexie and now I guess I’m in Billie’s favor.” I shrugged. “So he asked me if I’m up to going to this party -” I looked down at my watch and continued stressfully, “- where I’m supposed to be at in one hour. What am I supposed to do? I can’t show up there looking like this!”

“Ugh, girl drama, spare me the details. But if you need fitting clothes, you can borrow some from me. I should have an old Pistols shirt somewhere. You can have it if you want, I don’t really like them that much anymore anyway.”

“You serious?” I beamed at him and threw my arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re my savior.”

“Yeah, o-okay- let go.” He freed himself from my grip, but ruffled my hair in a brotherly way. “I’ll look for it. You can look for your oldest jeans that you don’t wear anymore.”

I looked at him skeptically while he walked out of my door. “Do you want to trade the shirt for my jeans? Do you think you will fit in them?”

“Ha ha. Funny. Right. Just look for them,” he said and walked out of my room.

A few minutes later I was standing in the living room with a small bag. Mom was sitting on the couch, her reading specs on the tip of her nose and immersed in the woman’s magazine in her hand.

“Bye Mom. I’m leaving now.”

She looked up for a moment and looked at me in my sunflower-yellow dress. She nodded curtly and returned her attention to her reading. “Uh-huh. Okay, love. Behave and say hi to her parents.”

I walked to the front door as quickly as I could. Nate was closely behind me and yelled a quick “I’ll walk her“ into the house and closed the door behind him. He was on look-out while I disappeared behind our garden shed and exchanged my dress for my other clothes. I looked at myself in the clear window of the shed. The Sex Pistols shirt hang loosely from my shoulders and as it became apparent, Nate really didn’t want to wear my pants, but only wanted to re-style them. My oldest washed out jeans were now riddled with countless holes we cut in with Kaylee’s children’s scissors that were blunted with old glue. Under my bed I had found a paar dusted, previously white Converse that I now had slipped into.

It didn’t really look half-bad - if I remembered correctly, I had seen someone from Billie’s clique walking around like this. It was perfect. Maybe a little too “clean” still, but an obvious change nonetheless.

“Wow, I don’t even look like myself.” I turned around to him happily and hugged him. “Thanks, seriously.”

“Now don’t get sentimental.”

With screeching tires the van came to a halt one street away. I didn’t want to risk my parents catching me in the act, so I instructed Billie where to park exactly, so it wouldn’t be suspicious.

“Your carriage awaits you, Cinderella,” Nate chuckled. “I feel like the fat fairy. Be home by midnight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grinned.

“And no drugs, you hear me?” he warned and took a look at the car. “Oh man, a white, windowless van? Really? Now I feel a bit irresponsible to let you get in there. Maybe it would be better if I called the police…“

I shook my head in amusement. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Have fun!” he yelled after me while I was excitedly jogging towards the van. “And don’t kiss any princes! Bippity boppity and shit!”

I waved at him one last time and entered the van.

 

There I was, standing in the corner of Eggplant’s surprisingly big living-room and tried to make myself as small and inconspicuous as possible. I had been sipping this disgusting cheap beer that was shoved in my hand when I entered the house for a whole hour now. Under normal circumstances I would have put it down somewhere long ago, but now I was clinging to it like a baby. Because as long as I was holding it, at least I knew what to do with my hands. In this moment it was my only support, since Billie and his following had spread in every direction and left me here alone.

He probably made the mistake of assuming that I had enough social skills to manage without him. Normally that was the case, but this was an entirely different story. Why that boy had invited me to this shindig was beyond me anyway. I didn’t fit in here, that was painfully obvious to me now and probably also to everyone else in this house. And to be honest, I was even a little bit mad at Billie for being the only one who didn’t see that and invited me anyway.

The drive in the van had been weird. Billie, Mike, Sean, and their drummer Al had practically welcomed me with open arms. Billie had even complimented me on my outfit and admitted that he was worried I would show up in my usual clothes. Just in case, he had stolen a few old clothes from his sister Anna and packed them in the car so I would be able to change. It was actually really sweet of him that he had put so much thought into it. Only Jason, quiet as ever, had made a point of not saying a single word the entire drive. It wasn’t untypical for him, with the exception that after he had eyed me up from head to toe, he had rolled his eyes and then stared straight through the windshield the entire time. It was making me extremely insecure, because I had no idea what kind of problem he had with me. Nobody else had seemed to notice.

The parties that I was used to were dimensions away from this chaos. I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. As soon as I had stepped over the threshold, I was almost knocked out by the sheer otherness that was going on around me. I had never seen this many colorful heads at the same time before - it seemed like there really was every color of the spectrum present - which fitted as well into the scenery of this big, bright house as I did into this party. I had needed a moment to get used to the culture shock.

The entire house seemed to burst at the seams and you weren’t safe from the masses of people in a single room  - not even in the upper floors, where there was either a couple (or whatever) enjoying themselves in one of the bedrooms or someone throwing up in a bathroom. Or the other way around.

I was surely making a bad impression. I was too stud-less, to piercing-less, too tattoo-less, too colourless and, despite my disguise, too normal compared to the rest. A rather unwelcome change. I preferred not to stand out. At least now I knew how Billie’s clique must feel at school. Although, you couldn’t really compare that because unlike me, they didn’t give a shit. They radiated confidence, while I was still standing in the corner terrified and trying to become one with the beige wall.

What a pathetic picture I painted.

Now I was suddenly doubting if _this_ was the best idea to escape the drama in my life. Standing in the corner of the room as if I had been ordered and not picked up while everyone else was enjoying themselves wasn’t my idea of fun and relaxation.

I really just wanted to get out. The music was way too loud and the people way too drunk. But I knew that if I disappeared before Sweet Children’s show, I would hurt Billie. He wouldn’t admit it or just downplay it, but I remembered how excited he was when he invited me. He had been so nice to me in the past few days, so I would be able to endure a few hours in my personal he- … at this party in return.

 

I had thought the evening wouldn't be able to get any more uncomfortable, but as so often, I had been wrong. Knowing my luck, I should have expected it.

Billie’s band was building up their equipment that they had previously loaded out of Mike’s van. I had stopped Billie on his way outside and asked him if I could help by carrying something - if I couldn’t enjoy myself, I might as well make myself useful, right? But once again, Billie had left me alone with a “We got it, you just get a drink and have fun”.

I tried to push through the dancing punks to the wall next to the stage to listen to their performance from there. You certainly wouldn’t see me dancing, I wasn’t drunk enough for that. Even though I had actually managed to finish my beer and I almost proudly threw it in the trash, just to get another bottle pressed in my hand by the very same guy. Considering the amount of people that were here and their alcohol level, I would have thought that they ran out of beer long ago, but there always seemed to be three, more or less full crates in the kitchen.

My plan was to stand close enough to the stage to be seen by Billie and making sure that he knew I hadn’t scrammed. Then I would nod along to the music in a cool way and signalize him with a grin that I liked what I was hearing.  Even if I didn’t like it.  I’ve never seen Sweet Children play after all, but being supportive was one of the most important ingredients to success in my opinion. Maybe one day I would get a dedication on their first platinum record: “For Jenny who gave us a supportive nod during one of our first shows and ensured our super-success.”

My slightly beer-woozy brain thought that idea was pretty good. Maybe I should talk to Billie about that after his show.

But on my way to my new best friend, the wall, it happened: I actually managed to step on a bottle that was lying around and not only take down the person next to me but also empty half of my bottle all over her.

My heart skipped a few beats and I felt the blood shooting up to my face, making it hot, as soon as my ass harshly kissed the floor. Not only did I make a complete fool out of myself, but to make matters worse, I also looked like a red traffic light.

“What-” it irritatedly sounded from the girl who was just knocked over by me and who slowly straightened up again and looked around for the culprit. “What the hell?!”

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!”

My voice doubled over in terror and I got up quickly to extend a helping hand to her, which she swept away in anger. She looked like the opposite of me, personified. Her skin was practically flawless and almost as black as her eyes that were flashing at me angrily. Her afro was bright pink, her clothes layered and torn, and her fishnets more hole than stocking. But the most important difference between us right now was that my beer was sticking to her and not to me.

“What the fuck is your damage?” she hissed when she got up without my help and eyed me up dismissively. “You do that for fun? Shove your hypocritical apology up your ass, I know exactly what kind of person you are…”

Holy shit, this was worse than any worst case scenario I could have ever dreamed up - this girl was taking it the complete wrong way. I dared to send a quick glance around me but to my rare luck nobody seemed to notice what was going on. The girl was loud and hysteric but nobody seemed to care because the music that was coming out of the speakers was much louder than her.

She snapped with her fingers in front of my face to get my attention back to her.

“HELLO, I am talking to you! You poured your fucking beer over me! Are you looking for a fight?! I will give you a fight, wait, I-”

“Relax,” her dancing partner interrupted calmly and lay a hand on her already raised arm. “It’s obvious that it wasn’t her intention. Look how much she’s blushing.”

I could swear that my face was getting a few nuances darker.

“‘msorry,” I squeaked and looked from her to him and from him to her with remorse.

He laughed and ran his free hand through his green mohawk. His voice was pleasantly deep. I couldn’t help but like him immediately, especially because he had just saved me from this hellcat. He put the joint that he was holding in his other hand between his lips where it was casually hanging next to his piercing, and extended his hand to me. I wondered if that was the reason for his serenity. For some reason I hoped it wasn’t the case.

“It’s cool. I’m Jim. This is Jackie. Sorry about her, that’s just how she is when she’s stoned.”

“Oh,” I chuckled nervously. “Jennifer,” I introduced myself and tried a smile, only to be met with Jackie’s distrustful glance.

“Don’t fraternize with the enemy, Jim.”

Wow. Enemy. That was passionate.

Jim just rolled his eyes in amusement and gave me a look that said something like “typical” or “don’t worry about it”.

“Nice to meet you,” he said and finally let go of my hand. That was by far the longest handshake I’ve ever participated in. He was charming, I had to give him that. Something in me wanted to say “I have a boyfriend”, but thankfully I was able to suppress that. Talk about insufficient social skills. I would have made myself the laughing stock.

“Yeah, same,” I breathed and cleared my throat. I had the urgent need to escape immediately. Under different circumstances I could have stayed and befriend them but it seemed like Jackie wanted to stab me with her eyes alone and, call me crazy, but I didn’t doubt that she could if she really tried. “I should probably - uh, I’m leaving?” I took a step back and pointed at the wall with my thumb. God, I was pathetic.

“Cool, see ya,” he said and blew the smoke from his blunt towards the ceiling and grabbed Jackie’s hand again.

Was there a bathroom here somewhere where I could hide and be alone for a moment? Or a bucket of ice where I could bury my bright red face in?

 

I had emptied my second beer in half the time I needed for my first one. I assumed that I had killed enough of my taste buds with the first one to kind of endure the second one. I also really wanted to get smashed now to forget that I had emptied half of it over Jackie. Or to not care about that anymore. Geez, if I kept this up, I would become an alcoholic.

I let my eyes wander over the pogoing people while Sweet Children were delivering their show on the makeshift stage, that wasn’t really a stage but just an spot isolated from the rest of the room.

Even though punk music wasn’t my thing at all - I didn’t lie when I said I shouldn’t even be here - I was surprised to find out that I actually kind of liked their music. And I didn’t just say that because Billie and I were sort of friends and I wanted to be nice, I even meant it. It was just different from the rest that had been coming out of the speakers the entire evening. Punk music was chaotic and careless, just like this party, but what Billie sang into the mic was melodic and … softer? His voice definitely sounded a lot more pleasant than that unbearable cawing that the band before them had to offer. Billie at least seemed to be making an effort to hit the notes, which I could only appreciate.

Maybe I should start a band too? Seeing Sweet Children like this was inspiring in a strange way. But that would already fail for the reason that I didn’t know enough people who really could master the instruments you needed for a band. Even if I had a keyboard, it would be a pretty lame start for a band. And I couldn’t do a lot more than that. In third grade I had started to learn to play the violin but my parents got sick of hearing horribly crooked tones everywhere in the house pretty fast. It was honestly horrible, I had absolutely zero talent for string instruments. If you cared for the well-being of your fellow human beings, you should only play the violin if you _really_ had the talent for it.

But a girl could dream.

My eyes caught a certain green-haired person who was standing on the other end of the room, just like me, and followed the events with interest while absent-mindedly taking sips from his beer every now and then.

He was just about to move his bottle to his mouth again when he noticed me staring. Caught in the act, I wanted to avert my gaze, but he just smiled mischievously and raised his bottle to me before drinking out of it again.

I followed suit but stapled my look back on the band and sucked at my bottle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Billie & Co didn't appear much in this chapter, and it will take a little while before they become regulars. The next chapter is already written though, and it's kind of a Billie-appreciation chapter, so maybe you can look forward to that :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I could update again for once lol. Haven't written in a long time cause of college n stuff but now I had finished my 10th chapter and remembered that I also posted the translation on here. Hope you'll like it! The next chapters shouldn't take as long as I've already translated them. Head to fanfiktion.de if you want to read more immediately and know any german, haha

_„You and I together, hand in hand  
_ _We run away“_

Green Day - Going To Pasalacqua

 

The feeling of the tepid evening air on my warm face was simply wonderful. For a moment I just stayed at the patio door to admire the view that the garden offered. Behind the fence of the property, the trees that introduced the Pinole Shores Park were being illuminated by the orange-red light of the sun that would soon set behind the summit of Mount Tamalpais. The soft northern wind blew the soothing air of the San Pablo Bay over to us, which was located practically right before Eggplant’s garden gate and gave me the needed refreshment after this more than heated day. Somewhere a few ducks quacked in accordance with the chirping cicadas, and in the distance I could hear a freight train coming closer that would soon drive past us on the tracks by the coast.

Finally alone. Finally quiet.

I let myself sink down on the floor by the house wall and stretched out my legs which were being occupied by an orange tabby cat almost as soon as I sat down. _That’s_ what I called pleasant company.

“Hey you,” I purred and fondly stroked her head behind the ears, which made her purr pleasantly in exchange and roll up on my thighs. She was still pretty small and had unbelievably soft fur and if I wasn’t so sure she belonged to Eggplant’s family, I would have packed her in my bag and taken her with me. Maybe I should come here more often.

I had lost every feeling of time while I was just sitting there, absent-mindedly petting the purring kitty on my lap and taking in my surroundings while the sun was sinking lower and lower. The volume inside the house hadn’t decreased, on the contrary.

The scraping of a garden chair to my left finally tore me out of my trance.

Sitting in one of the metal chairs was Jason who had put one leg on top of the other on the chair in front of him and took a drag out of his cigarette, calm as ever, while he was watching me with attentive eyes.

“How long have you been sitting there?” I asked in surprise. Why hadn’t I noticed him? Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable in his presence. I felt like he didn’t like me and I had no clue why.

He shrugged. “A while.”

While he was speaking, the smoke of his cigarettes escaped his lips.

“Oh. Since before I came out?”

“Yep.”

I blushed again.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you at all,” I explained bashfully, “or else I would have said something.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Maybe they should put a bell on you,” I tried to lighten the mood.

I could have sworn that I saw the corners of his mouth twitch, but it could have been my imagination, because he was supporting his arm on the table and hid half of his mouth with the hand that was holding his cigarette.

“I get that one a lot too,” he remarked and corrected his pose a little bit so that I could see his entire face.

He really was smiling. A little bit. Almost unnoticeable. But he smiled.

We fell silent again and and watched the waves that were crashing against the coast and splattered water over the railroad tracks.

“That was a great performance by you earlier, by the way,” I interrupted the silence after a few minutes.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “it wasn’t half bad. Thanks.”

I simply nodded. He let out a sigh.

“You know that Billie has a girlfriend, right?”

“Oh, uh, okay?” I replied, confused by his random statement. “No, I didn’t. But that’s good for him.”

“Yep. They’re pretty happy together,” he added and obviously waited for some kind of reaction. I had the sudden feeling that I was being tested.

“That’s… nice? Why are you telling me this?” I finally asked.

“Listen, okay?” he put out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I know exactly what you want. You got a crush on Billie and now you wanna take a trip into his world. That’s totally understandable, everything is so exciting and so on. But let me tell you how this will go down: you live in the fast lane for a bit, Billie will write one or two songs for you, and in two weeks he will fall in love with someone else. And you will go back to your boring suburban life.” He shook his head. “Believe me, he has written songs for a lot of people. Now a few weeks ago he got Erica, and you won’t come along and ruin this for him.”

“You don’t like me because you think I’m in love with Billie?” I asked incredulously.

He laughed humorlessly. “It’s not about you. I have nothing against you. You’re actually quite nice, really.” He shrugged. “That’s why I’m telling you this, to protect you from the inevitable. And because I’m tired of one-day wonders.”

“Oh, you wanna protect me?” I smirked.

“In a way, yeah.”

I nodded slowly and tried to hide my amusement but I failed miserably.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked with a fat grin in my face.

He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“I don’t have a crush on Billie,” I giggled. “I have no interest in being with him. That would be like going out with my brother. Ew.” I pulled a face.

He gave me an irritated look. “I don’t get it?”

“Billie and I know each other from elementary school. We were best friends once, back then,” I explained. “We got talking a few days ago again. That’s it.”

He looked surprised. “He didn’t tell me that. He just said that you would come with us to see us play. I was wondering why one of the popular girls in school would be wild about going to a party like this.”

“One of the popular girls?” I asked with a grin but he didn’t look impressed. “No, seriously. I have no idea what I’m doing here. Billie just came up to me and invited me. I thought it would be a good idea to get a break from the stressful everyday life. I don’t want to use you guys or anything. Sorry if it came across like that.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s alright. I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions,” he said ruefully. I was doing a celebratory dance on the inside when he finally gifted me with a real smile. “Maybe you’re cool after all. Maybe you can come with us again soon. If Jackie won’t tear your head off first,” he added with a grin.

“Oh my god, you caught that?!”

He laughed. “No, she just told everyone who walked past her to be on the lookout for some wannabe punk who was looking for a fight. I figured that must be you.” I hid my face in the palms of my hands in embarrassment. Why did I have to make such a fool out of myself? “Don’t worry about it, I don’t think there’s anyone that battle dwarf hasn’t hassled yet. She’s really okay actually. Next time she will probably stick to you as if you’ve known each other for years.”

Suddenly, I felt like I had finally arrived. “I hope so. I could really use a good girlfriend right now.”

Jason and I shared a couple more silent minutes on the patio while we watched the orange-red color of the sky disappear behind the horizon. The air smelled a bit like the sea and cannabis--and with a glance above my head I saw that two girls had apparently had the same idea we had, and were watching the sunset arm in arm while sharing a joint.

The awkward silence between us had turned into pleasant tranquility, now that we got the topic that was weighing on both of us out of the way. I was watching him secretly out of the corner of my eye as he was sitting there on the garden chair with his legs curled up, his head lying on his knees and staring ahead with empty eyes, without looking at anything in particular. It was astonishing how quickly the tides could turn.

Yesterday my life had been completely normal and today, before I could realize it, it had made a 180 degree turn. I had lied to my mom to drive to a wild house party with a group of punks, I was wearing clothers that I wouldn't dream of wearing under different circumstances, I had drunk more alcohol in one evening than I did in 6 months, I had made new enemies and was now sitting on a stranger's patio as an outcast among outcasts, and was now enjoying the last moments of the evening with a person who would normally steer clear of me, and vice versa. It really was crazy. And absolutely exciting.

'If my friends could see me now', I thought happily. They wouldn't believe their eyes and ears. The thought of my life continuing as usual once the next week started was almost bitter. I had no idea how to arrange my normal life with this new experience. I felt torn between two worlds - my usual every day life with my old friends and this. It had been a culture shock in the beginning, and it still was, but it was so exciting!

I had cannonballed into a different world and had to get used to the temperature. But I was sure that I would learn to like it, if I spent more time in the water.

In the end, my thoughts were interrupted by Billie, who ripped open the patio door and ran into the garden along with Mike. 

"There you are, we were looking for you everywhere! Get up, get up!" he yelled out of breath and yanked me to my feet with one strong pull. "We need to leave."

Jason seemed to immediately understand what was happening. Without saying a word, he jumped out of his chair and ran towards the garden fence. Sean and Al, with their arms full of beer bottles, and loudly laughing were storming out of the inside of the house now too.

"What's going on?" I asked, thoroughly confused and with a touch of panic. "What happened?"

"The cops," he said and pulled me toward the fence with him. "Quickly!"

"What, the cops are here?!" I yelled in disbelief. Suddenly, my stomach twisted into a big knot and I could already feel the sweat forming on my forehead. If my parents could pick me up at the police station tomorrow morning, I would be dead. Done for. There I was being bold for once and then  _this_ happened. "Oh my god, are you goddamn serious? What did you do?"

One after another climbed over the tall fence to the other side. They seemed to be used to this. I wasn't sure if I was athletic enough, but I didn't want the cops to pick me up either.

"Fuck," he slipped out quietly when he saw my expression. "Shit, don't worry! Stay calm, breathe in and out, okay?" 

I obeyed but it didn't make me feel better one bit. He looked straight into my eyes and forced me to look at him by holding my much too warm face in his cool hands. "Nothing will happen to you. Believe me." I nodded hesistantly.

"Do you think you can make it over the fence by yourself?" I gave him a doubtful glance. "Okay, I'll give you a leg-up." He folded his hands in front of his body and looked at me expectantly. "Quickly!"

I did as he said and was almost thrown over the fence by Billie. Who would have thought that there was so much strength hiding inside him? I wasn't exactly a lightweight. My jeans got caught up in a stray wire and I created another big hole in my jeans when I tore them free. At least this tear had a better story to tell than the others who were created with Kaylee's dull children's scissors. I landed on my butt none too gently and scraped my palms on a stupid bush. Behind me, Billie landed gracefully like a cat on his legs and yanked me back on my feet by my t-shirt.

"Come on, featherweight, let's scram," he laughed and took my hand to pull me after him while he ran after the rest of our group in the direction of the park and the railroad tracks.

"Featherweight? You're crazy." Now I was laughing too and I threw a glance over my shoulder to check if we were being followed. But to my greatest relief there was no soul behind us. My panic was chased out of my body by a flush of adrenaline as I was running through the night side by side with Billie. He was practically glowing. His sweaty face glistened in the dull light of the street lamps by the wayside and his short, black strands were sticking to his skin. But not just that: The grin on his face seemed to be permanently carved into his face and the laughter lines around his eyes were indispensable. Even his wheeze sounded more like laughter than exertion.

The look made me halt for a short moment. It was ages ago that I saw him this happy. I saw him laugh now and agin in school or fool around with his friends, but it wasn't the same. He always seemed very repressed, as if he never wantd to share his happiness with anyone, as if he never wanted to let anyone get close. It wasn't surprising either. But that he was able to let go of that in ym presence was an ultimate demonstration of trust, and it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

"This isn't the first time that this happened, is it?" I asked when we finally allowed ourselves to slow down. Al, Sean, Mike and Jason were walking a few steps ahead of us and were conversing about something. Every one of them was holding a couple of beer bottles in their arms. Sean and Al must have emptied the entire kitchen at the last minute. Eggplant surely wouldn't be thanking them.

"Nah," he grinned and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Something like this happens... I don't know... three out of five times. Nothing really happens, usually they just break up the party and tell people to piss off home. But today some people were taking speed and acid, and when they catch you with that, everyone's in deep shit. Eggplant hates it when they do it at his place, but people do what they want."

My eyebrows shot up. Speed and acid? I didn't know what I had expected but this revelation surprised me a lot. Even Brad smoked a joint every now and then, that was no secret to me, but suddenly being confronted with harder drugs... I had to digest that first. Wasn't that... dangerous?

Suddenly he took a small, transparent bag out of his back pocket and my heart started to thud a couple beats faster at the thought of him really pulling out speed or acid right now. Relief washed through me whenI realized it was just weed. I was watching him with fascination as he put some crumbles on a long-ish piece of paper, rolled it with his fingers a couple of times and quickly wet one side with his tounge before he twisted the tip shut.

I had tried to roll a cigarette once and had failed miserably. That Billie could do this with such ease bordered on art. Fine, he had a lot of practice. He flicked his lighter a couple of times to light his joint and took a deep drag, closed his eyes with pleasure and then watched the smoke travelling into the sky. Immediately the sweet smell entered my nose that I had sensed on the patio. It didn't smell bad. It was almost pleasant.

"So, what about your instruments?" I asked. "Are you just gonna leave them there or what?"

He shrugged and took another drag. "Yeah, I guess we have to. It doesnt matter though, we'll just pick them up later. It's not like the cops would just steal instruments out of some house."

Without looking at me, he suddenly held out his joint to me as if it went without saying. I took it almost automatically, even if I was a little perplexed and just stared at it as if it was an alien object of something else I never thought I would touch. I was holding a real joint in my hand. I was probably an embarrassment for California but I seriously had never held a joint in my hands before, let alone smoked one. It was on equal parts exhilirating and overwhelming. What was I supposed to do with this?

"Uh," I uttered while still focussing on this thing in my hands while holding it away from me with spread-apart fingers.

"Hm?" Billie looked up and set his curious gaze on me. And on the joint. Then back on me. Back on the joint, as if he didn't understand what was wrong with it. His brain seemed to work hard. Then he started giggling as if he had suddenly gotten a joke. In all probability, I was the joke.

"Don't tell me..." He hesitated, "that you never..." He was clutching his stomach and threw his head back a little and laughed, while my own head was probably getting redder and redder.

I felt the strong urge to stick his stupid joint up where the sun didn't shine. I had never smoked weed, so what? It really was a  _huge_ deal.

"Billie," I growled, insulted.

"Where have you been  _living?!"_ he laughed and was holding my shoulder to not fall over from laughing. I shook him off but he stuck to me again. What a brat.

"No, no, this is amazing, seriously! How did you manage to avoid it for so long?"

"I just did," I grumbled.

"Oh, come on, I'm just teasing you." He pouted. "Don't be mad!"

"Piss off."

He gripped me tightly and by doing so, he pressed my arms against my sides. "Nooo... come on.."

"Are you always so awfully cuddly when you're high?" I asked but couldn't surpress a smile. His antics were almost adorable.

Suddenly he let go of me and walked a step in front of me, facing me.

"Don't fall," I warned. But he was still walking pretty confidently, even backwards.

"I'll show you how to do it. Oh, this is my big moment." He rubbed his hands. "I'm your master and you're, like, my novice. So, put it in your mouth.

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID," Sean hollered, closely followed by a quieter, uncromprehending "Dude that doesn't make any sense" from Mike.

"Shut your mouth, Seah, you're ruining my big moment! So, put it in your mouth..."

I was holding the joint between my index- and middle-finger and moved it to my lips.

"Yes, good. And now you take a drag, okay? Slowly at first, so you don't throw up on my shows, just like Sean on his first time," he yelled just loud enough for Sean to turn around in annoyance.

"You don't have to rub in everyone's face. Go fuck yourself, seriously."

I took a slow drag, but didn't really taste anything. The inside of my mouth felt a bit warm but other than that?

"Okay, and now breathe it into your lung. You don't puff on joints, it's such a waste..."

I could feel the smoke wandering down my throat and I coughed instinctively to get rid of it. It came back out in bursts.

"Good and now inhale again properly."


End file.
